Expressive Arts Therapy for Elderly Patients

“I just got all around the music and let it get all around me.” This is the way Lorna Smith, a resident at Hazel I. Findlay Country Manor in Saint Johns, Michigan, described her experience during one of the regular music therapy sessions offered by music therapist and gerontologist Dr. Stephen Hale.

The program facilitates long-term care for residents who suffer from Alzheimer’s and other severe dementia-causing disorders. Like Smith, many of these residents, who daily battle against decreasing levels of cognitive functioning, perk up immediately as soon as Dr. Hale starts to strum his guitar. Suddenly animated, many of them begin to laugh and smile, clapping and nodding their heads in time to the rhythm. While many residents typically have trouble maintaining focus and remaining alert, as soon as Dr. Hale begins a music therapy session they make eye contact with him easily. When the music starts, their former listlessness and agitation quickly disappears.

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“Music therapy in a long-term care setting has a particular value for residents who become isolated, withdrawn and depressed,” says Vicki Ritz, the program’s director of nursing.

Alzheimer’s patients are not the only ones whose lives have been significantly improved by music, art, and dance therapy. The treatment has been shown to benefit people suffering from a wide range of disorders, including schizophrenia, aphasia, autism, Tourette Syndrome, and Parkinson’s disease.

Elaine Hall, who adopted her autistic son, Neal, from a Russian orphanage when he was 2-years-old, has made it her mission to bring art therapy to children who have difficulty expressing themselves.

Hall, who has been dubbed “the child whisperer” because of her knack for engaging children in performance, founded the Miracle Project as a way to carry out her mission. Formerly an acting coach for Hollywood film and television stars, Hall now prefers to focus her attention on the very young. The Mircale Project, “a musical theater and video arts program for children of all abilities celebrating music, dance, story and culture,” produced a documentary called “Autism: The Musical” that HBO released in 2008. The film chronicles the struggles of a group of autistic children and their families as they get ready to put on a show.